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Society of Petroleum Engineers With thanks to: Helen Lewis (Hydro-DDA development,
Distinguished Lecturer Program geomech sims), Jingsheng Ma (flow upscaling), Jean-Marie
www.spe.org/dl
Questiaux (reservoir models), Mark Reynolds (H-DDA
2
models), Dave Stearns (how to swim upstream)
Gary Couples
• Geological education (rock mechanics)
• Industry employment (Amoco, others)
• Academic position Glasgow Uni (hydrogeology)
• Moved to Heriot-Watt in 1998
• Now, partly engineer, partly geoscientist
3
Aims of this Talk
• Quash some unhelpful myths about fractured
reservoirs
• Introduce a wee dose of process
understanding (geomechanical interactions)
• Outline next-generation approaches to
predicting reservoir performance
• And comment on what we can do now…
4
Sequence of Talk
• Brief overview of fractured reservoirs
• Simple (but incorrect) notions about fractures
• Geomechanics of blocky systems, and controls
on effective flow properties
• Towards a workflow...
Shear Compactional
fracture shear band
Open (dilational) (granulation
shear fracture seam)
Thanks to Atilla Aydin for expressing 6
some ideas leading to this image
Aha! We have a Fractured Reservoir
Map a trap Wireline data is promising
Sw
Drill the discovery well; Wireline logs
0 100
Calculate high oil
it has shows through the saturations
Estimate flow
Great! We are rich! PI = very small (1.2 x 10-4 bbls psi –1 day –1)
< 6 bpd !
STOIIP = GRV x So x f x NTG x Bo Pres = 5 x 103 psi
“Dark Permeability”
• Seismic anisotropy
– Estimation of orientations and intensities
• Outcrop analogues
– Observable patterns in a presumed
analogue
• Geomechanical simulation Questiaux et al (2010)
Example from Olson (2007) showing fracture Fold-associated fracture systems, and
patterns that form in two progressively-evolved mechanical-unit boundaries, described by
models driven by strain boundary conditions Stearns (1968), Lewis and Couples (1992) 11
Reservoir Models
• Using data, and adopting a conceptual model
• Discrete Fracture Network, and/or
• Fracture corridor “objects”
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Ideas Examined Here
• Fracture opening/closing = changes in stress
– So classical arguments about fracture apertures
being controlled by effective stress are wrong
• Fracture-parallel stress and fracture opening
• Effective stress and poro-elasticity
• Stress heterogeneities in blocky systems
15
A Simple Truth
• D fracture aperture = rock movement
• Surrounding blocks, so aperture increases can
only occur by shortening the adjacent rock
matrix (which will increase its stress), or by
lengthening the whole mass – and the reverse
is also true for aperture closure
fracture
d=1m 16
Adjacent blocks
x
An Analogy
• In the lecture room,
An easy thought-experiment the chairs are arranged
side-by-side
• Now, assume that the
space between them is
increased – BUT, the
length of the row is not
changed…
• This is only possible if
the size of each chair is
The car jack represents the
reduced
pore pressure opening the
fracture apertures
This “Problem” is Already Known
• In a hydrofrac well stimulation, a similar behaviour occurs,
when fractures open and hence load the sideburden. Stress
changes caused by one stage of treatment interfere with the
next (adjacent) stages, and there is uplift of the ground and
tilting (we use tilt-meters to monitor this).
• The same phenomenon is observed in geotechnical situations
such as the placement of concrete diaphragm walls
The opening
Stress is not
constant...
Uplift & tilting
Soil is then removed
from here stress change
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Fractures Parallel to Load
• Simple model of elastic solid with elliptical opening
• Model is loaded at boundaries, and the aperture
changes
• If sy > sx, the model itself gets wider! Oops… same
problem…. and sx would have to increase…
sy
b sx sx
1.00E-04
Case 1
Strain normal to
fracture (=P/E)
Case 3
opens
5.00E-05
Case 4
Case5
0.00E+00 Case 6
closes
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Baghbanan and Jing (2008) Hall et al. (2007)
What Is Going On?
• Blocky geomechanics results in non-linear,
interactions (and these are NOT elastic)
• Stress state is not homogeneous
• Pore fluids provide another, bi-directional
interaction
• Thermal effects add a third interaction axis
• System response is not deterministic, with
emergent behaviours
• Understanding the responses requires use of
numerical simulations 23
Hydro-DDA
• Examples to follow are based on the 2D
simulation environment Hydro-DDA
• This couples single-phase fluid flow with a
discontinuum simulator that deals with the
geomechanics of fractured/blocky systems
• DDA stands for Discontinuous Deformation
Analysis (Lin, 1995; Shi and Goodman, 1998)
Loading
arrangements
Reynolds, 2004;
Highest eff perms are NOT in Reynolds et al 2007
cases where current load is
same as causative load! 250x 2.5x
2 cm
Colours show pressures. Black and white lines are fracture traces. Difference between models
is very small – only a tiny change in connectivity of the fracture network (see inset box). The
effective perm of the right model is 6X that of the left one. This change cannot be predicted
from fracture population statistics.
Fluid Flow
330
310
Keff y (mD)
270
250
210
0 20 40 60 80 100
9hrs 5 hrs 1 hr
1600
1400
1200
Keff x (mD)
1000
600
400
200
0 20 40 60 80
Flores et al (1995) 29
Do you have any other
A Real One… real examples to share?
e Model 17b
e x
slip processes) k x
37
Sorry to be so pedantic!
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End
I wish to express my thanks to colleagues, students, questioners,
and critics who, over many years, have challenged me to
continually develop my ideas on fractures and geomechanics
References:
Baghbanan, A. and Jing, L. 2008. Stress effects on permeability in a fractured rock mass with correlated fracture length and aperture.
International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, 45, 1320-1334.
Couples, G.D. 2014. Geomechanical impacts on flow in fractured reservoirs, In. Spence, G.H., Redfern, J., Aguilera, R., Bevan, T.G.,
Cosgrove, J.W., Couples, G.D.& Daniel, J.-M. (eds) Advances in the Study of Fractured Reservoirs. Geological Society, London,
Special Publications, 374, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/SP374.17
Flores, M. Davies, D., Couples, G. and Pallson, B. 2005. Stimulation of geothermal wells: can we afford it? Proceedings World
Geothermal Congress 2005, Ankara, Turkey.
Hall, S.A., Lewis, H. and Macle, X. 2007. Improved seismic identification of inter-fault damage via a linked geomechanics seismic
approach, . In: Lewis, H. and Couples, G.D. (eds) Relationships Between Damage and Localization, Geological Society of London,
Special Publications, 289, 187-207.
Lin, C.T. 1995. Extensions of the discontinuous deformation analysis for jointed rock masses and other blocky systems. PhD thesis,
University of Colorado.
Questiaux, J.-M., Couples, G.D., Ruby, N. 2010. Fractured reservoirs with fracture corridors. Geophysical Prospecting, 58, 279-295,
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2478.2009.00810.x
Reynolds, M.A. 2004. Load-sensitive fluid flow through fracture-matrix systems. PhD thesis, Heriot-Watt University, 239p.
Reynolds, M.A., Couples, G.D., Lewis, H. and Pickup, G.E. 2007. Localization processes in a coupled hydrogeomechanically-sensitive
fractured system. In: Lewis, H. and Couples, G.D. (eds) Relationships Between Damage and Localization, Geological Society of
London, Special Publications 289, 209-225.
Rouainia, M., Lewis, H., Pearce, C., Bicanic, N., Couples, G.D., and Reynolds, M.A. 2006. Hydro-geomechanical modelling of seal
behaviour in overpressured basins using discontinuous deformation analysis. Engineering Geology 82 222-233.
Shi, G.H. and Goodman, R. 1998. Generalization of two-dimensional discontinuous deformation analysis. International Journal for
Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 13, 359-380.
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